We're Back!

It has been a long time since we have posted on this site.  It just kind of gotten away from us once the fall came around.  A lot of things came up in our lives that took more precedence over the blog, BUT I can proudly say we never stopped brewing!  In fact we may have actually increased our brewing in Fall 2010 over Fall 2009.  We made a lot of changes in how we brew and when we brew to correspond with the earthly temperatures.  It also fit in our personal/work schedules quite nice!  This blog post is going to be a doozy,  since I will be recapping from Fall 2010 until today.  Might as well start in order.

Back in October, really more so back in August of 2010 I, Matuz, signed up for a group called STLMalts.  It is ran by a guy named Kent Robertson, and if you live in the St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson County areas, I recommend signing up and getting your malts from him for some of the LOWEST prices you will ever see.  Going through Kent, we bought several sacks of grains and a grain mill.  This has lowered our cost per beer significantly, and we will no longer have to pay the price of shipping which can sometimes be 20% of the cost of the batch!  Since using these grains and crushing them ourselves on the day of the brewing, we have noticed an increase in hitting our O.G. measurements.  We have always been within range, but 3 batches in a row were right on the dot!  We are pretty excited about that.  Next step: Yeast Culturing...which brings me to my next update.

A BEER FRIDGE!  Craigslist is great.  I bought this fridge for $50 from a fellow brewer.  He told me the freezer part did not freeze, I thought that was great, it would just stay cool and I could store yeast cultures in there.  I was wrong...but in good way.  The freezer part did work, so I can't complain about something that is working, right?  So far we have this fridge, two college fridges, and a deep freeze(temp controlled) holding beer...oh and a kegerator with two kegs.  AND we STILL have beer that can't fit...why so much?  Well that brings me to my next update.

I swear the two Bud Selects in the pic are not for me
...but the Coke Zeros are!

We recently updated our brewing schedule to increase the efficiency of hitting our wanted taste,smells, and gravities by brewing only during the late fall, winter(mainly), and early spring.  We found that those seasons allowed for much more stable and desirable temperatures in our "Brew Haus" in the basement of Irish Rover. The temp controlled freezer helps out a lot, but that is mainly for lagering(lower temps than can be reached naturally), and conditioning.  We have discovered two things by planning our brews this way.

1. Better brews.
2. Allows time for more family/friend activities since we are brewing much more in less weekends.  Our summer is completely open! Along with most of fall, and most of spring was, too!

Finally, on my end, I will end with a little bit about what I have done recently at my new residence.  I just moved into my new house with my beautiful wife, and we have planted two hop rhizomes(Nugget and Sterling), and 6 semi-erect thornless blackberry plants.  The hops are doing great, and if we can get rid of this rainy weather they will take off even more.  Right now they are between 5-6 feet tall.  The blackberries may give us some fruit this year, but definitely more next year after they have taken hold.  Enjoy the photos and stick around for more updates about Antonio on Wine, Der Brauer on his grain and grape endeavours in Hermann, and Irish Rover winning Crown Valley Brewery and Distillery Porter category. 

                                                                               

Hastily prepared blackberry site.  Basically put them in and
covered in mulch...

                                                                                               

My wife helping me put the stone border around.

My dog, Scully, checking to make sure the stones are in the
proper locations.

View from the road.

So far so good! Bring on the sunlight!

-Matuz

I Mead Input

After having a discussion a few weeks ago with an old professor of mine and doing some research, I've decided I'd like to make a Mead of some kind. At the suggestion of several sources, I am considering a Dry Mead spiced with herbs. These are said to be the most drinkable when made by a rookie like myself. Any of you know much about Mead?

Here is a relevant link I was forwarded:

http://www.greydragon.org/library/basic_mead.html

Said professor was also involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism (a medieval re-enactment group) in which a lot of people "totally dig" Mead. He forwarded me this as a helpful resource:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/brewing.html

Inspiration

Knowing little to nothing about winemaking and having some leisure time during a Christmas break, I sought the advice of my fiance's grandfather, who has been making wine since the mid 1960's. He showed me some tricks, how he stores his wine, and a basement that contains old metal cabinets full of wine from the past four decades.

Grandpa's winemaking process is notable to me for many reasons:

1. He was an apprentice to no one except text. He learned how to make his first batch of wine by going to the local library and copying down old recipes from books. He is a heavy advocate of 'winging it'.

2. He now uses only the fruit he has grown in his garden with his wife. He is in his mid-80s and still doing it the same way.

3. No preservatives or chemicals have ever been used in his wine. After he sanitizes, he uses only hand-pressed fruit juice, sugar and water. When the first batch aged and he drank it, it didn't kill him, and that told him chemicals were unnecessary. At Christmastime, I tasted from a bottle made in 1978. I am indeed alive and I get a goofy grin anytime I recall the taste of it.

4. All of his wine is excellent: The strawberry wine, the gooseberry wine, the muscadine wine. It is as good as, or better than, any wine I've purchased at a store.

5. Most of it is semi-sweet to sweet and it is consumed during family gatherings, much like coffee is served in other places, during a late night family card game. Never have I seen anyone plow through a glass of it. It seems to be an unspoken rule that it is to be enjoyed slowly.

This in mind, I have a lot to learn through trial and error over the next several years. My fiance and I plan to toil in our own garden and work toward our own little plot of Wine nirvana and we hope our friends will be joining us for years to come.

Coming next from me will be a story-so-far description of my first attempt at a blackberry wine.